1. Field of the Invention
Our invention relates generally to apparatus for retrieving pet waste and specifically to a reusable device for gathering pet waste into a bag for sealing and disposal without soiling anything other than the disposable bag interior.
2. Discussion of the Related Art
It has been said that the American population is outnumbered by their pets. We are arguably outnumbered by our pet dogs alone, which number more than 250 million by some estimates. As these numbers increase, the public demand for animal regulation increases correspondingly, responsive to the public health and safety concerns related to the high population of pet animals.
Generally, pet owners residing in municipal regions are subject to ordinances requiring that their animals be leashed at all times in public and somehow restrained in private to prevent uncontrolled wandering. More recently, some municipalities have promulgated so-called "pooper-scooper" ordinances, which require pet owners to accept personal responsibility for collection and disposition of the waste material produced by their pet animals. A typical ordinance instituted recently in a medium-sized southwestern city provides that "to avoid criminal charges, you must immediately place the waste in a plastic bag, securely tied, then place it in a solid waste container." This ordinance specifies up to a $2,500 fine, six months in jail and three years on probation as penalty for violation. Clearly, the social trend that started years ago in the major northeastern cities has now spread to the relatively suburban southwest.
When pet owners are subject to both leash-laws and pooper-scooper ordinances, the owner is obliged to (a) "walk" his pet on a leash and (b) retrieve and dispose of pet wastes when and where the animal decides to relieve itself. This distasteful routine is familiar to all responsible dog owners and many bystanders. Because of the distastefulness of this routine, many less responsible dog owners leave the waste where it lies. The local legislative body responds to this problem by instituting severe sanctions for such behavior, such as the type of penalties exemplified above. Practitioners in the art respond to the problem by proposing means designed to minimize the unpleasantness of the gathering and disposal of such animal waste.
For instance, the term "pooper-scooper" originally denominated a long-handled mechanical apparatus well-known in the art for retrieving solid dog wastes without soiling the owners' hands. Unfortunately, the first such pooper-scooper was a large and awkwardly-configured device that is inconvenient to carry and soiled in use. In using this or later versions of a pooper-scooper, a rigid tray or scoop is employed to scoop up the waste material as best as possible, leaving soiled both the vicinity of the waste and the tray itself. Even if a disposable bag is placed within the tray, no means are provided for cleanly gathering all of the waste material into the bag, which omission usually obliges the user to employ a twig or other readily-available item as a tool (scraper) for manipulating the waste material from its lie into the bag.
Responsive to this problem, one practitioner has added a spring-loaded clip to the bottom of a scoop for retaining a disposable plastic bag in position while "scooping" the waste material. While such an improvement perhaps solves the problem of holding the disposable bag in position for one-handed use, it does nothing to improve the gathering operation. The user is still obliged to grab the nearest twig or other suitable disposable scraper to gather the material into the bag. As every dog owner knows, a simple unaided scooping action relying on collection by gravity alone is not sufficient to gather and retain looser material into a bag held only on one side.
Accordingly, pet-owners (and others) are often confronted with pet waste having available only an awkward scoop or shovel or, worse, a simple plastic bag for use together with whatever other "tools" may be afforded by their immediate environment. Human nature being what it is, such unpleasant pet waste is commonly left where it lies, creating social, public-health and legal problems for the pet owner and others. Other solutions known in the art such as disposable surgical gloves, paper tissues, sandwich bags and the like do little to reduce the well-known unpleasantness of the pet sanitation task. None of these alternatives provides for simple sanitary gathering and bagging of pet waste. Also, the suitable device should be convenient to carry in, say, a shirt or hip pocket, for ease of carrying along when "walking" the dog.
Accordingly, there is still a clear need in the art for a simple device that solves these problems of (a) awkwardness, (b) inconvenience, and (c) distastefulness associated with gathering and disposing of pet waste. These unresolved problems and deficiencies are clearly felt in the art and are solved by our invention in the manner described below.